On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a
precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette
Place, Washington, D.C. A great strike in the anthracite coal fields of
Pennsylvania threatened a coal famine. The President feared "untold misery . .
. with the certainty of riots which might develop into social war."1 Although he had no legal right to intervene, he sent
telegrams to both sides summoning them to Washington to discuss the
problem.

Roosevelt, who had been injured a month earlier when his carriage was
hit by a trolley car, sat in his wheelchair pleading with representatives of
management and labor. "With all the earnestness there is in me . ..," the
President urged, "I ask that there be an immediate resumption of operations in
the coal mines in some such way as will . . . meet the crying needs of the
people." He appealed to the patriotism of the contestants to make "individual
sacrifices for the general good."2

This meeting marked the turn of the U.S. Government from strikebreaker
to peacemaker in industrial disputes. In the 19th century, presidents, if they
acted at all, tended to side with employers. Andrew Jackson became a
strikebreaker in 1834 when he sent troops to the construction sites of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.3 War Department
employees operated the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad during the Civil War
.4 In the violent rail strikes of 1877, Rutherford
B. Hayes sent troops to prevent obstruction of the mails.5 Grover Cleveland used soldiers to break the Pullman
strike of 1894.6

Here and there a ray of neutrality broke through the anti labor
atmosphere. Congress established a Bureau of Labor in 1884, which was the
forerunner of the present Department of Labor, Federal Mediation and
Conciliation Service, and Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1886, Cleveland asked
Congress to "engraft" on the Bureau of Labor a commission to prevent major
strikes. In 1888, Congress passed a law aimed at promoting industrial peace in
the railroad industry. After the Pullman strike, U.S. Commissioner of Labor
Carroll D. Wright headed a group which made a colorless but honest report of
the dispute. One recommendation provided the basis for the Erdman Act of 1898,
under which the Commissioner of Labor and the Chairman of the Interstate
Commerce Commission tried to mediate railroad strikes. The law had not yet been
applied when a new Federal policy erupted from the industrial warfare in the
coalfields in 1900 and 1902.7

The groundwork for the 1900 anthracite coal strike was laid by the
unexpected results of strikes in the bituminous or soft coalfields in 1897. A
depression in 1893 forced down wages and, according to a Pennsylvania
legislative committee, many miners lived "like sheep in shambles." A
spontaneous uprising had forced many mine owners to sign a contract with the
United Mine Workers. Both sides struck a bonanza as operators raised both wages
and prices. Coal companies prospered, and union membership soared from 10,000
to 115,000.8

John Mitchell, who at the age of 28 became president of the United Mine
Workers in 1898, hoped to achieve the same kind of success in the anthracite or
hard coalfields of Pennsylvania. Anthracite coal at the turn of the century was
an unusual business. Unlike soft coal, anthracite was a natural monopoly
heavily concentrated in a few hundred square miles in five counties in
Pennsylvania. Anthracite coal, because it burned cleaner than soft coal, had
become the main heating fuel in many Eastern cities. Rivalry for control of the
industry led to over expansion, violent business fluctuations, and eventually
control by a few large independent mine owners, coal railroads, and bankers.

For miners the work was hard, intermittent, and hazardous. To keep wages
low, operators flooded the coalfields with immigrants from Eastern and Southern
Europe. The men were of 14 different nationalities, spoke different languages,
and had different customs. Of 150,000 workers, only 8,000 belonged to the
United Mine Workers. But Mitchell hoped that the anthracite industry would
negotiate with the union in order to reduce competition.

Mitchell underestimated the opposition of the mine operators, and the
operators underestimated the militancy of their workers. In August 1900, the
union drew up demands and asked for a conference. The operators refused to deal
with the union. Mitchell offered to have the dispute arbitrated. The operators
rejected the offer. Mitchell reluctantly called a strike on September 17, 1900.
He was apprehensive about the miners' response. But "poetic justice has been
meted out," he exultantly recalled. The non-English speaking miners, introduced
to break labor organizations, had become staunch supporters of the United Mine
Workers.9

The White House was caught off guard by this major strike on the eve of
a Presidential campaign. President William McKinley was running for reelection
against William Jennings Bryan under the slogan of "Four Years More of the Full
Dinner Pail." Some newspapers charged that the strike was fostered by
"conspirators working in the interests of Bryan." Mitchell repeatedly denied
that politics motivated the strike, but he admitted that the forthcoming
election "proved of incalculable assistance to the mineworkers." 10

Senator Marcus A. Hanna, political "kingmaker," led the campaign for
conciliation. "Uncle Mark" had become a champion of industrial peace and argued
that responsible trade unions would wean workers away from Democrats and
radicals. Hanna worked with banker J. P. Morgan to persuade coal railroad
presidents of "the dangers that would accrue from the election of Mr. Bryan to
the Presidency."11 George Baer, president of a
coal railroad, claimed that both McKinley and Hanna had warned him that the
coal strike could seriously hurt their party at the polls.12

Under political pressure, coal operators posted a pay increase and
agreed to a grievance procedure but refused to recognize the union. John
Mitchell, though boasting that the workers were victorious, accepted half a
loaf as better than none and dropped the fight for union recognition. He called
off the 6-week strike on October 29, a week before the Presidential election of
1900. McKinley won by a wide margin. Although its motives may have been
partisan, the Administration was setting the stage for a new role for the
Federal Government as a peacemaker rather than a strikebreaker in industrial
conflicts.13

The coal strike of 1902

The strike of 1900 was the prelude to a larger drama--the great
anthracite coal strike of 1902. Restless miners demanded more pay and shorter
hours, while the mine operators complained that profits were low, and that the
union destroyed discipline. When the owners refused to negotiate with the
union, miners appealed to President Roosevelt to call a special session of
Congress. The operators, on the other hand, resented the Federal mediation
which had brought about the shotgun agreement of 1900, and they bristled at the
idea of renewed Federal interference.14

John Mitchell was frustrated by the refusal of employers to deal with
the union. He proposed mediation through the National Civic Federation and if
that were not acceptable then a committee of eminent clergymen should report on
conditions in the coalfields. George Baer expressed the sentiment of many coal
operators when he replied, "Anthracite mining is a business, and not a
religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.... I could not if I would
delegate this business management to even so highly a respectable body as the
Civic Federation, nor can I call to my aid . . . the eminent prelates you have
named." 15

The miners struck on May 12, 1902. There was hope for a settlement as
long as firemen, engineers, and pumpmen remained at work. But when these
maintenance crews walked out on June 2, both sides settled down for a long and
bitter fight. Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright wrote that of 147,000
strikers, 30,000 soon left the region, and of these 8,000 to 10,000 returned to
Europe.16 Although Mitchell exhorted the miners to
strike peaceably, strikers attacked scabs, terrorized their families, and
lashed out at private police forces and armed guards hired by mine owners
.17

The political climate had changed between the coal strikes of 1900 and
1902. McKinley had been assassinated, and Hanna had lost much of his influence.
Theodore Roosevelt, who stepped into the breach, believed that both capital and
labor had responsibilities to the public.

Carroll Wright's mission

President Roosevelt was an activist who itched to enter the fray. On
June 8, 1902, he asked his Commissioner of Labor, Carroll D. Wright, to
investigate the strike and report back to him. Wright avoided going to the
coalfields because he felt that as the President's representative his "presence
there would do more harm than good." Instead, he headed for New York City,
where he interviewed presidents of coal roads, independent mine operators,
financiers, mine foremen, and superintendents. He also heard the miners' side
from John Mitchell, whom he summoned to New York. Wright worked assiduously,
and within 12 days, he sent by special courier to the President a substantial
report accompanied by tables and statistics's.18

Wright reported that both parties cooperated with his investigation and
that sharply different opinions arose out of different positions and not out of
misrepresentation. Then Wright proceeded to reduce the highly emotional claims
to a factual account. The strike, he observed, had more varying conditions,
conflicting views, and irritating complaints than any he had encountered. He
then explained the origins of the strike, the demands of the workers, the
claims and complaints of the employers, a dispute over weighing coal, wages,
and the cost of production, profits, and the question of freights.

Wright expanded his original assignment by including in the report
"suggestions that seem reasonable and just." He proposed an experimental
reduction from 10 to 9 hours a day, protection of nonunion men, a joint
committee on conciliation, and wherever practicable, collective bargaining.
These suggestions, he concluded, might not lead "to the millennium" but they
would "help reach the day when the anthracite coal regions shall be governed
... with greater justice and higher moral principles than now generally prevail
on either side."19

Wright's report had aroused hopes of early settlement, and the strikers
eagerly awaited its publication .20 On June 28,
Roosevelt sent the report to Attorney General Philander Knox with the comment,
"This is an important report by Carroll D. Wright. Will you read it over and
then at cabinet we can discuss whether it shall be made public. I like its tone
greatly . . . ." But after discussion Roosevelt questioned whether publication
might be construed as Presidential approval of Wright's recommendation before
he was prepared to make commitments. He therefore held in abeyance his decision
on publication.21

Newspapers reported that the President had "pigeonholed" the report
because it was favorable to the miners. Wright angrily denied the charge. But
Roosevelt was troubled by the accusation, and he made the report public in
August of 1902.22

Roosevelt's quandary

As the strike dragged on, Roosevelt became more and more restless. His
attorney general, Philander Knox, told him that the strike was not his concern.
Roosevelt repeatedly raised the issue, but Knox continued to advise the
President that he had no right to intervene.23

The coal operators were determined to break the strike and rejected all
union offers to conciliate on the grounds that there was nothing to talk about.
When George Baer, spokesman for the operators, received a letter appealing to
him as a good Christian to make concessions, he replied that the "rights and
interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for--not by the labor
agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has
given the control of the property interests of the country." Union supporters
brilliantly exploited this "divine right" letter of "George the Last'' and
public opinion turned against the operators.24
Perhaps for the first time in American history, a distinguished scholar wrote,
a union tied up a basic industry "without being condemned as a revolutionary
menace."25

President Roosevelt was in a quandary. "There is literally nothing . . .
the national government has any power to do," he complained to Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. "I am at wit's end how to proceed."26 Lodge too was worried. He did not understand the folly
of the operators which would cause great suffering and probably defeat the
Republican party.27As winter neared and coal
prices soared, Roosevelt feared "the untold misery . . . with the certainty of
riots which might develop into social war." Although the President agreed with
his advisers that he had no legal right, he determined to bring both sides
together and see whether he could bring about an agreement. 28

A historic confrontation

At a historic meeting, Roosevelt called in representatives of
government, labor, and management. "The ten men met in my room on October
3, Roosevelt wrote, "I being still unable to leave my wheelchair."
Attorney General Knox, Labor Commissioner Carroll D. Wright, and Secretary
Cortelyou were present.29 Roosevelt "disclaimed
any right to intervene" but the "terrible nature of the catastrophe impending"
impelled him to use his influence "to bring to an end a situation which has
become literally intolerable."30

For Mitchell, the calling of the conference implied union recognition.
Breathing the sweet smell of success, he was at his conciliatory best.
Mitchell, Roosevelt wrote, "behaved with great dignity and moderation. The
operators, on the contrary, showed extraordinary stupidity and bad
temper."31 The operators were "insolent" to the
President, and they savagely berated Mitchell as a leader of agitators and
extremists who killed 21 people and deterred thousands from working by
intimidation and violence. 32

The operators told the President that instead of wasting time
negotiating with the "fomentors of this anarchy," he should use the power of
government "to protect the man who wants to work, and his wife and children
when at work." With proper protection they would produce enough coal to end the
fuel shortage. The operators angrily rejected the President's efforts to
mediate and refused to deal with Mitchell."33

"Well, I have tried and failed," Roosevelt wrote that evening to Marcus
Hanna. "I feel downhearted over the result."34 The
President did not hold the strikers blameless, but he disagreed with the
operators' position that there was nothing to discuss. "Commissioner Carroll D.
Wright, in whom I have the utmost confidence," Roosevelt wrote, "has reported
to me that . . . there is certainly right and wrong on both sides." The
operators, Roosevelt declared, had no reason to reject conciliation .35

At first, the operators seemed to have won a victory by their
recalcitrance. The Governor of Pennsylvania ordered the entire State National
Guard to the coalfields. But soldiers don't dig coal. The miners remained on
strike, and the operators failed to make good their promise to mine enough coal
to meet public needs.36

Although Roosevelt blamed the operators for spurning mediation, he again
appealed to the strikers. On October 6, he asked Wright to propose to John
Mitchell that if the miners returned to work, he, the President, would appoint
a new commission to investigate all matters and would do all within his power
to enforce the commission's findings.37 Roosevelt
recognized that the operators' position was "exquisitely calculated" to prevent
compromise.38But both he and Wright tried to
persuade Mitchell. For a time Mitchell wavered. Then he wrote the President
that, in view of his experience with the coal operators in the past, he did not
trust them. The miners had gone more than half way and objected to further
sacrifice, he believed. Mitchell felt that compliance with the President's
request "would mean surrender of the cause for which the miners had so
heroically fought." By a near unanimous vote, miners determined not to go back
to the pits until the operators made real concessions.39

Since no end of the strike was in sight, the President prepared to send
Carroll Wright on another investigation. Former President Grover Cleveland
wrote Roosevelt that the miners should first go back to work and then negotiate
a settlement. Roosevelt welcomed Cleveland's support and proposed to expand
Wright's investigation in an extraordinary way. He wanted Cleveland and other
eminent men to "join" Wright. "I earnestly beg you to say that you will
accept," the President wrote Cleveland. The latter reluctantly agreed and sold
at a loss his stock in coal railroads to avoid a conflict of interest.
Roosevelt then searched for other prominent men to add to Wright's commission
.40

President Roosevelt also was ready as a last resort to order the U.S.
Army to take over the coalfields. He would do whatever was necessary to prevent
interference with the resumption of work and would run the mines. In the
meantime, his commission of eminent men would decide the rights and wrongs of
the case41.

The rising crescendo of public rage was setting the stage for drastic
measures. Roosevelt feared that the "attitude of the operators" would "double
the burden" of those who stood against "Socialistic action." Carroll Wright
noted that public men and industrialists were "rapidly becoming State
socialists insofar as the coal industry was concerned," and that even
Congressmen advocated revolutionary change.42

J. P. Morgan makes a deal

Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Elihu Root, was worried about the course
of events. He had been a distinguished corporate lawyer and was a friend of
banker J. P. Morgan. Root told Roosevelt that he would like to mediate in a way
which would not commit the President. On October 9, he enlisted Morgan's
influence in a proposal whereby the miners would go back to work while a
commission considered the issues. Although this was an oft-made proposal, Root
added a face-saving wrinkle. Each company and its own employees would present
their differences to the commission. This would spare the operators from
dealing directly with the miners' union and show the public that the coal
industry would arbitrate with its workers.43

Morgan asked Root to come to New York. On October 11, 1902, the two men
met for 5 hours on Morgan's yacht, the Corsair, allegedly because newspaper
reporters could not bother them there. They drafted an arbitration proposal.
The mine operators, fearful of rising public hostility and under pressure from
Morgan, accepted the Root-Morgan recommendation provided that they could set
ground rules. On October 13, Root and Morgan brought their arbitration proposal
to Roosevelt, who then made it public.44

The 'eminent sociologist'

Though the operators had at last agreed to arbitrate they would not
negotiate with Mitchell in his capacity as president of the United Mine Workers
Union, but merely as a spokesman for mineworkers. In addition they limited the
makeup of the commission to five men — a military engineer, a mining engineer, a
judge, an expert in the coal business, and an "eminent sociologist."

Mitchell agreed that he would not force the issue of union recognition
but he balked at the effort to "pack" the commission. He wanted the President
to add to the commission a labor man who was likely to understand the workers'
point of view and a Roman Catholic prelate because most miners were Catholics.
Roosevelt thought Mitchell's request reasonable and told him he would try to
appoint two additional men to the commission.

"Nothing you have ever written can begin to approach in screaming
comedy" the appointing of the coal commission, Roosevelt wrote to political
satirist Finley Peter Dunne. "If you or anyone else produced it and ascribed it
to a fictitious character all people would unite in saying it was too gross a
caricature to possess literary value."45 Although
the operators' representatives feared class warfare, they refused to accept a
labor man on the commission. Finally, Roosevelt recounted, they "happened to
mention that they would not object at all to my exercising any latitude I chose
in appointments under the headings they had given. I instantly said I should
appoint my labor man as the 'eminent sociologist.'" Roosevelt never forgot "the
mixture of relief and amusement" he felt, when he "thoroughly grasped the fact"
that the operators "would rather have anarchy than Tweedledum," but "if I
called it Tweedledee they would accept it with rapture." Roosevelt then
appointed E. E. Clark, head of the railway conductors' union, as the "eminent
sociologist," a term that Roosevelt doubted Clark "had ever previously heard."
With the consent of the operators, Roosevelt also added a Catholic bishop to
the commission.46

Lost in the shuffle were ex-President Grover Cleveland and Commissioner
of Labor Carroll Wright, who only a few days earlier were to have been the
cornerstones of the President's strike settling commission. Roosevelt apologized
to Cleveland for dropping him. However, he utilized the services of Wright, who
had "been a real strength and help" to him. He first made him recorder of the
new commission and shortly thereafter he appointed Wright as the seventh
commissioner.47

More important than the incredible maneuvering in the selection of the
Anthracite Coal Strike Commission was the overriding fact that finally miners
and operators alike agreed that all disputed issues should be submitted to
arbitration. Both sides also agreed to abide by the findings of the commission.
"The child is born," wrote Carroll Wright, "and I trust will prove a vigorous
... member of society."48

The Anthracite Coal Strike Commission

On October 23, 1902, the 163-day anthracite coal strike ended. The
following morning President Roosevelt met briefly with the commissioners and
asked them to try to establish good relations between the employers and the
workers in the anthracite fields. The commissioners refused to comment to
reporters, and then met for almost 2 hours at Wright's office, one block from
the White House. There photographers took pictures, and the room became so
saturated with smoke from their flash powder it had to be aired out. After
organizing and scheduling future sessions, the commissioners lunched with the
President, and then began their arduous task of settling the strike.49

Before listening to testimony, the commissioners spent a week touring
the coal regions. They rejected the offer of the coal operators for a special
train and visited mines selected jointly by the opposing parties. They saw
first hand the conditions under which miners lived and labored.

Carroll Wright was overwhelmed with work and deferred as far as possible
other duties he had as Commissioner of Labor. He used a large part of the
meager resources of the Department of Labor, which then had a total annual
budget of $183,000, to support the work of the Commission. Wright ordered
special agents, experts, and clerks to drop current assignments and go to the
coalfields to obtain prices of items commonly used by employees of anthracite
mines. He repeatedly reminded these agents of the "extreme and urgent need" for
data, and when they ran into language barriers, he authorized them to hire
interpreters.50

The commissioners, after their inspection tour, met for nearly 3 months.
Five-hundred fifty-eight witnesses appeared, including 240 for the striking
miners, 153 for nonunion mineworkers, and 154 for the operators. The Commission
itself requested the appearance of 11 witnesses. The testimony ran to 10,047
legal-sized pages in addition to other exhibits. John Mitchell played a
prominent role in presenting the case for the miners. George Baer made the
closing arguments for the coal operators, while Clarence Darrow closed for the
workers.

Although the commissioners heard some evidence of terrible conditions,
they concluded that the "moving spectacle of horrors" represented only a small
number of cases. By and large, social conditions in mine communities were found
to be good, and miners were judged as only partly justified in their claim that
annual earnings were not sufficient "to maintain an American standard of
living."51

The Commission's findings seemed to split the differences between
mineworkers and mine owners. The miners asked for 20-percent wage increases, and
most were given a 10-percent increase. The miners had asked for an 8-hour day
and were awarded a 9-hour day instead of the standard 10 hours then
prevailing.52 The operators refused to recognize
the United Mine Workers union. But Mitchell believed that he had won de facto
recognition and wrote that the "most important feature of the award" was the
creation of a six-man arbitration board to settle disputes that could not be
worked out with mine officials. The employees selected three members and the
employers three members.

The Commission dealt with many other subjects, such as private police
forces, child labor, and blacklisting. But the panel observed that what was
really needed was a spirit of good will. "A more conciliatory disposition in
the operators and their employees in their relations toward one another," the
Commission commented, "would do a better and a more lasting work than any which
mere rulings, however wise or just, may accomplish."53

Strikes and the public interest

The history of the coal strike of 1902 is an oft-told tale. Samuel
Gompers, near the end of his long career, wrote:

Several times I have been asked what in my opinion was the most
important single incident in the labor movement in the United States and I have
invariably replied: the strike of the anthracite miners in Pennsylvania ...
from then on the miners became not merely human machines to produce coal but
men and citizens.... The strike was evidence of the effectiveness of trade
unions ....54

The victory in the anthracite coalfields breathed new life into the
American labor movement.55 It strengthened
moderate labor leaders and progressive businessmen who championed negotiations
as a way to labor peace. It enhanced the reputation of President Theodore
Roosevelt. Sometimes overlooked, however, is the change the conflict made in
the role of the Federal Government in important national strikes.

The Anthracite Coal Commission, toward the end of its report, summarized
in a cautious way the responsibility of the National Government in "cases where
great public interests are at stake." The people had "the right . . . to know
the facts, and so be able to fix the responsibility. In order to do this, power
must be given the authorized representatives of the people to act for them by
conducting a thorough investigation."56

Roosevelt stated the matter more vigorously. His letters are sprinkled
with sentences such as "no wise man would controvert that in this anthracite
situation the public has an interest." The "National Government represents . .
. the interests of the public as a whole." "I fear there will be fuel riots of
as bad as a type as any bread riots we have ever seen."57

The draft of his statement to the coal operators and union leaders at
the temporary White House on October 3, 1902, stated that "no precedent of
interference in strikes will be created." But Roosevelt knew he was breaking
new ground, and he deleted this sentence from his final speech. He recognized
that under ordinary conditions he had no right to interfere in the strike. But
Roosevelt was not the kind of man to "sit by idly" while "misery and death come
to the great masses of people in our large cities." He told his Attorney
General and Secretary of War that strong action might be an "evil precedent,"
but he would run the risk of impeachment rather than expose the Nation to
chaos."58

Roosevelt's efforts to end the strike were successful. Both sides
finally agreed to the findings of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, and
peace was restored in the coalfields. More important in the long run, a new
role was established for the Federal Government in labor disputes. During the
dramatic confrontation with the mine operators and workers on October 3, 1902,
Roosevelt had said, " I speak for neither the operators nor the miners but for
the general public." He made labor and industry accept the fact "that the third
party, the great public, had vital interests and overshadowing rights" and so
set a precedent for the Federal Government to intervene in labor disputes, not
as strikebreaker but as a representative of the public interest.59

Jonathan Grossman was the Historian for the
U.S. Department of Labor. This article originally appeared in the Monthly
Labor Review of October 1975.

55. Following the strike, the United Mine Workers
became for a time the largest and most powerful labor union in the United
States. When a Cabinet-level Department of Labor was created a decade later,
President Woodrow Wilson wanted to appoint Mitchell as the first Secretary of
Labor. Mitchell did not push his candidacy, but another top official of the
Mine Workers during the great strike of 1902, William B. Wilson, became the
first Secretary to represent labor's voice in the Cabinet.